Three Halloween Shopping Places

 

By Gemma Cleanslate

 

Here we go into the dark days of Halloween. There are some wonderful regions set up for the holiday. If you are looking for places to shop for your region or just your home. I always like to visit Dench Halloween store . Since I am a member I can grab the fun many gifts. There are so many wanderers moving about that fit well in home or around a region or club. Check outside the store and inside . They are everywhere.

Wearable dancer companions are so numerous this year there are rezz areas to see what they look like. If you are in the group look at the gift area for four free ones too. I love the wearable dancers who have a great dance hud to fit any music you hear.

One can get a whole group like the Asylum inmates or the skeleton band. Don’t miss the Halloween bargain counter for 5L items. The shop will be open until November 1st. 

 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rookery/22/33/222

Another store I always love to visit is Khargo . The Halloween store is amazing. Many items are set outside among the brilliant autumn trees and foliage. Take a walk all around to check out the variety of display items and figures. How about a whole Haunted house. The prices are also great here too.

Be careful of the some of them.. you may become part of the setting. Many of the items will fit well on small parcels and many for larger parcels . The shop is full of items to decorate inside a club, or shop and definitely a home.

I could not resist this decoration.. no clue where I will put it but the price was right too!!!Do not miss visiting Khargo. 

 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife//216/113/21

One more store to visit that is full of sets of scenery. The landmark is listed as “Fiendish Rides and Haunt” If I had a region to fill or even a quarter of a region to decorate for the season or even just an event I would start here and then move on to the two stores above . A scene from here would be the base and more décor would go around it. Arriving at the store one has many doors to choose from..

I started at the Main Ride area. Here you get a chance to take the varied rides and see what you like.

They are scary! Try some. One that I was impressed with and glad to survive was the Grim Funeral!

I was informed by a mysterious voice that it was MY funeral!

Then I moved into the demo area where one can rezz different rides and experiences and try those also. Just going here will give one loads of rides experiences even if you don’t buy them all. A whole day can be spent over at Grimley. Checking games and characters also. It is a trip worth taking!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Koko/53/204/3003

Gemma Cleanslate

Note:  Two pictures were missing when the article was first posted. They have since been added.

Wolf Ridge Asylum

By Bixyl Shuftan

Halloween season in Second Life means plenty of haunts to visit. There are too many for the Newser to write in-depth about, and too many for most residents to visit. So to stand out, some are making an extra effort to give the audience a more exciting time. But Wolf Ridge Asylum is going all-out to give it's visitors a scare they'll never forget. Located in the Geerkil land sim, this isn't a run of the mill spook house, but a three story maze of horrors with traps, reactive mobs, and volunteers playing the part as monsters. But the journey isn't the only reward. There's also a scavenger hunt with a prize for finding all the items.

1-quarter sim... Three stories high... Featuring Hidden Traps and Live Adversaries! All-Fur Radio Media in association with Club EFS present you... The Wolf Ridge Asylum! Come to Geerkil Land at Club EFS for the Halloween Fright of your un-life! Join the party at the club, and then dare the horrors of the Asylum Labrinth! Win prizes and have fun, now until the lights go out on the 31rst!... And be prepared to make the Ultimate Sacrifice!

I met up with one of the staff, Tod Heat (Okori Inaka), the designer and general manager. Speaking to me in Voice, he called Wolf Ridge Asylum a "funhouse for SL-goers" with "traps and live enemies. It was made by the staff of Club EFS, which was nearby, "It's open at nights run by a bunch of furries. You enter a game with scripts. Big Linden prizes. ... something special for the adults once the kiddies go to bed." Unlike most haunts, it's only open at certain times as "people where cheating when it was closed." So when it's not operating, those dropping in not on an approved list will be booted out. Tod did say on Halloween, they'll give some extra time for people to finish up." The location is "music powered" by  All Fur Radio.

Tod called the Asylum an "absolute labyrinth" with all kinds of features, and horrors. Playing it properly requires a HUD. The place has barely visible, or outright invisible, traps that will "kill" your avatar and send it back to the safe zone next to the entrance. There are also animesh and mesh mobs that move about, or pop out from some hidden location. Some of these will react to your presence and will also teleport you back to the start if they touch you. And then there are the "volunteer frighteners," human-controlled avatars like you playing the part of monsters whom will be unpredictable. Will they just sit around, or will they be relentlessly trying to hunt you down like no script-controlled animesh bot ever could?

As an extra incentive to brave this nightmare, there's a scavenger hunt with prizes. Scattered around the Asylum are dozens of raccoons (a scavenger hunt for scavengers?). There are sixty raccoons, fifty regular and ten golden. If you manage to find all fifty of the gray critters, you get a 3000 Linden prize. If you find all of the golden raccoons, you get 5000 Lindens. If you find all five dozen of the regular critters *and* the golden ones, you get a whopping 10,000 Linden dollar prize. At the time of the interview, Tod told me so far no one had been able to collect enough raccoons to get the top prizes.

There is no fee to enter the manor to make a try for the prize, "It's all free." They do accept donations. Besides Tod, others on the team included Kate (Katelynni Resident), Correzz Resident, and MetalWolf Nootan. JB Raccoon came up with the original concept of Wolf Ridge Asylum.

Along with the HUD, I got a short tale of the haunt's supposed origins, a place of refuge and healing that was made following a terrible war that people, human and furs alike, felt had cursed the land. Over time, conditions in the Asylum deteriorated, until an investigation revealed conditions that shocked the most war-hardened veterans among the police and the place was closed. Supposedly few have dared to go in, one who did and managed to escape saying:

"Be warned of the Wolfridge Asylum!! The nightmare begins as you walk in the front doors! No! It's the very grounds itself! Oh, gods. Guns don't work for long! Blades only hamper them!! Light only keeps them at bay! Nothing you carry in there will save you!! The way the Asylum sucks you back and forth in time, forces you relive any tiny mistake you make; to re-live the pains again and again again!! One inmate told me that if you stay too long?... You may just become one of its residents yourself, becoming the very things that chase, punish and torment!! I've seen it myself!! It's all worst on the Pumpkin Month!!! Then, it becomes three times its former power, and it's only growing year by year! There's no end to the pain, suffering and torment!! The Asylum is pure evil! Please!! Please, don't go in! You'll be lost forever!! Forever!! FOREVER!!!"

Both the story and announcements warned, "Be prepared to make the Ultimate Sacrifice!" So what is the "Ultimate Sacrifice?" That's something you may have to find out for yourself.

The Wolf Ridge Asylum is located at Geerkil Land (165/122/2251), and is open Thursday to Sunday from 9PM to 2AM SL time, with the last day open being Halloween, in which it will be open a little longer for people to finish.

Can *you* rescue all of those poor innocent raccoons from the nightmarish horror and walk away with the prize that has eluded everyone else?

Bixyl Shuftan

Note: The notecard I was given told me the times open were from 5PM to 10PM SL time, though I was told differently. Also, I had been told All Fur Radio had been a co-sponsor of the event. I was later contacted by someone saying they were providing the music, but that was all.